A Shining Light

It’s as if the headlight is projecting a film onto the road. As the new Cayenne merges onto the autobahn, the lighting system activates automatically – and casts a very bright carpet of light in front of the SUV. As soon as it detects a vehicle ahead, the carpet of light is reduced in size. When changing lanes, it widens to both lanes for a short time. As if by magnets, the rectangle of light sticks within the lane markings.

With the HD Matrix LED headlights in the new Cayenne, the next dimension of light technology has been achieved. Lane illumination – that is what the function described in the scenario is called. To keep the projection of the headlights in the lane as precisely as possible, the system uses data from the front camera and the navigation system. It is one of many capabilities that the innovative light system has to offer – brighter and more intelligent than ever before. The 65,536 LEDs of the two Cayenne headlights illuminate the darkness for a distance of up to 600 meters and provide a pleasantly wide field of light. With intelligently controlled continuous main beam headlights, the innovative feature significantly increases comfort and safety for progress you can actually see.

Unmistakably Porsche – the light of the future in a dream

The high-end headlights are the brand’s new visual fingerprint – and unmistakably Porsche, as the low-beam design of the HD Matrix headlights is a groundbreaking reinterpretation of the brand’s signature four-point daytime running light and thus a unique selling point. The headlight generates all of the daytime running, low beam, and high beam functions with four modules –design and function in harmony.

The idea of the four-point daytime running, low beam, and high beam lights at the front of the Porsche 918 Spyder caused quite a sensation around ten years ago, when the super sports car celebrated its world premiere at IAA in Frankfurt in September 2013. The vehicle featured four LED points in a single headlight, with the multifunctional LED low and high beam module in the very center. Five points at night, four during the day. Even back then, two resourceful minds at the Porsche Weissach Development Center – designer Heinz Redlich and engineer Robert Hähle – had a vision of developing four-point daytime and nighttime running lights on this basis at some point in the future. One of them, as Head of Lights, designed the look of the headlights and taillights of the future together with his team in the design studio, while the other, as Head of Development, provided the light and sight necessary to implement them. “We did, in fact, begin thinking about the topic with the 918,” says Redlich. “It had an all-LED headlight on a motorsport level – meaning very light and very efficient. And we made these four points of the daytime running light so dominant that they ultimately shaped the entire brand.” One of the most frequently asked questions at that time: does it work with four points at night too? The answer was no. It was not yet technically possible, as the low beam required different modules than the daytime running light. “But the topic was ever present in our minds,” says Redlich.

At the same time, Hähle and Redlich continued to optimize the Porsche light with their teams. The first LED matrix light featuring 84 pixels debuted in the Panamera in 2016 and is still one of the best systems on the market to this day. But even at that point, the light could not yet be produced with four modules instead of five. Nonetheless, the experts held fast to their distant goal. “We began intensively discussing the topic of all-LED headlights with four points in 2016,” recalls Hähle. “Because that’s when we could see a new technology on the horizon.” What he’s referring to is the high-resolution HD matrix light, a system with thousands of points of light in a single headlight. However, the technology was not yet ready for series production. Research also needed to be conducted to determine which of the different matrix systems with which resolution would make the most sense for Porsche technologically speaking. And then there was a breakthrough. In 2018, there were signs that an established supplier had already made so much progress in its research on the hardware and software that the new technology and thus possibly the four-point low beam would finally be able to make the jump into series production.

“We then commissioned a light strategy road map,” explains Hähle. “The technology would be used in several different series, which was an important factor.” The challenge of developing a single, highly complex light system for very different vehicles at the same time had begun. All the light of one headlight was split between four modules for the first time. The innovative HD Matrix LED headlights underwent final testing in the new Porsche light tunnel in Weissach, a facility with two-lane testing track measuring more than 100 meters in length and 15 meters in width – for the light of the future.

HD modules with wide angle and telephoto lens

The four points of light of the new HD Matrix LED headlight are formed with two modules positioned in an upper row and two in a lower row. All four modules feature a narrow LED light guide for the daytime running light. With the two upper bifunctional modules, each with six LEDs, Porsche generates the courtesy lighting and the auxiliary high beam. The two actual HD modules are positioned in the lower row, with a single LED chip in the center. Per module, a total of 16,384 micro LEDs, each of which can be controlled using the signals of the front and the online Connect services, are positioned on a surface smaller than the size of half a thumbnail. In addition, data from the chassis, and the associated body movements, as well as data from the steering angles and navigation system, ensure intelligent light distribution.